We communicate with our eyes, our hands, our face, our mouth, in fact with every part of our body. These include eye contact, posture, hand gestures, mannerism and tone of voice.

Even with all the available technological means, there is still no substitute for “person to person or face to face communication. That is because the human brain can gather much more information from a face to face conversation than just the spoken or written word. All these hidden messages are shown through our body language.

To prepare for a presentation, first consider these questions.

Why do you want to make this presentation?

What do you want to present?

To whom do you wish to present?

When planning and preparing think about the “Three I’s”; Inform, Influence and Inspire.

Are you presenting to inform your audience about events or facts?

Is your intention to influence your audience to think or act on the information?

You need to inspire the listener that what you say is worthwhile. Therefore you need to instil a sense of discipline and the value. You may also want to induce motivation.

For example, imagine that you are going to make a training presentation to train your staff. You want to speak about leadership and your audience would be about 30 people from various departments

Structure your presentation to last no more than 20 minutes. It is difficult to keep an audience attention for longer than this. So get your message across in that time. Leave about 10 minutes at the end to answer any questions

Remember the three stages of preparation – Research, Refine, and Rehearse.

Plan your presentation well in advance. Leave enough time to do all your research work. You would have done most of your hard work before preparing for the actual presentation through rehearsing. Prepare to present your speech with confidence

Refine your presentation so that your delivery is entertaining and memorable.

To make your points, use easy phrases, raise rhetorical questions, compare and contrast, and make points using “one, two three”. Take and adapt from famous speeches. For example:

Ask not what this country can do for you, but together what we could do for humanity? – John F Kennedy

Are we being forced to decide between freedom and prosperity?

You turn if you want to. The lady is not for turning – Margaret Thatcher

Blood, sweat and tears – Winston Churchill

Freedom – What is freedom?

“Is freedom just another word for nothing left to lose? Nothing ain’t worth nothing, but it’s free”.

‘I gave my life for freedom, this I know, for those who bade me fight, told me so.

“It is by the goodness of God that in our country that we have these three unspeakably precious things; Freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and the prudence never to practice either of them. – Mark Twain

“Freedom of the press in Britain is freedom to print such of the proprietor’s prejudices as the advertisers don’t object to. Hannen Swaffer

During rehearsal, think ” FAR”. That is Fluency, Attention and Response

How fluent is your delivery? Practice, practice and practice!

During your presentation you need to keep your audience attention. Plan and keep this in mind. Listen to yourself. You need to rehearse at least 10 times to really make an effective presentation.

Open your presentation with a clear, short message to capture your audience to grab their attention.

Here are a few general guidelines for public presentation.

When making a public presentation say what you mean and what you believe. Always be truthful, because whatever you say, your gestures will reveal what you really mean. If you are trying to sell something or an idea that you really believe is of low quality or value, you will find it hard to sell.

Make eye contact with as many people in the audience as possible. Show them that you are really communicating with each of them. Always keep their attention.

Stand upright and be confident in what you say. Don’t twiddle and make noises with pens or tap on the desk. This can distract the audience’s attention. Leave a notice at the entrance to request the audience to refrain from using a mobile phone during your presentation.

Use your hands and body in a positive way to make a point. For example, open your arms wide to say that something is large.

Always show respect to your audience. They have given up their own valuable time to come and listen to you. So don’t make jokes at the expense of your audience. You can use humour very effectively, but keep it clean and not offensive to any ethnic group or religion.

If you are using a projector, make sure that it adds to your message and not distract the audience away from you. Red backgrounds, cluttered with irrelevant pictures and small writing will distract the listener.

Most of all, remember that they have come to listen to you, not to view a slide show.